Na Píobairí Uilleann

Chairman, NPU

An Píobaire

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9 4 22 20130930 22 and I often heard them at the German tionóil. Each drone group (Ddd’ and ee’) had its own switch. The effect of changing the just tonic drone while changing tunes from d to e was absolutely surprising and convincing. I had a long-term loan of this set after he fell ill, so I played this set a lot. I added a forth e’ regulator of the W. Rowsome pattern and improved the two regulator levers for working it with the right thumb alone. As a re- sult, tunes in e’, with tonic drone, could be fol- lowed by tunes in d or g with the drones switched to the new tonic. The musical benefit really is worth the effort, assuming that the piper is in- clined to value regulator playing at all. I was thinking over ways to have one of my standard sets furnished with two drone groups as well. They all have stocks which leave no space for additions. So I had to be content with three drones, but I wanted to split up the group: The baritone drone for e, the others for Dd’. So there remained the question of how to mod- ify the lever. Fortunately the lever on the sets in question was of the simple kind: It moves left and right for stopping and starting the drones, but also to and fro, rotating around the rod. So there was another closing/opening move- ment at hand, independently from the classical one. First of all, I stopped up the usual air sup- ply between the switch plate and the baritone reed channel and I removed the closing cork from this channel. Now I set a brass tube, wrapped to diameter, in its place. This tube has a small inlet hole bored into the side of it, and this filed flat. Now under the screw holding the closing plate of the drone switch I fixed a “fin- ger” of aluminium (could be brass as well). Its pad closes the inlet hole of the baritone inlet tube once the lever is moved towards the player. Being shut, it may glide along the tube while the lever is moved left / right as usual. At the same time it can act as switch for the baritone while keeping the other drones shut or open. Picture 4 shows this mechanism with the padded closing “finger”, opening the air supply hole at the side of the tube. Thus the drone lever now may be moved into four positions: – All drones silent (lever to the right and to the piper, pushing the “finger” onto bari- tone tube hole) – All drones playing (lever to the left and off the piper, moving the “finger” off bari- tone tube hole) – Only Dd’ drones playing (lever to the left and to the piper) – Only baritone , now tuned to e (lever to the right and off the piper) I found it very desirable to still have access to the classical Ddd’ drone set, which was possi- Picture 3

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